


Happy Endings

by quentincoldwter



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Alternate Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-16 13:15:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18692215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentincoldwter/pseuds/quentincoldwter
Summary: Three happy endings to erase the sad one from existence. Three possibilities of how both Quentin and Eliot could survive season four finale and have a chance to be together. Three ways of saying "Thank you" to the actors and their characters and "Fuck you" to the writers.





	1. Someone Else Can Be A Hero

There's an ocean, stretched out from the shore and into an endless nothing. The sound of waves, crashing, filling the entirety of his mind. A prettier alternative to the white noise, and a step-up from the anxiety driven whispers, it surrounds him from all sides. Only for a moment of distraction, that is. A moment of uncertainty, hesitation, when life and death are balanced on the scales of the universe. Then reality claims him back, relentless, pushing him to the surface.  
“Quentin! Quentin, we need to cast the spell now!”  
He takes a deep breath, focusing on Alice's voice, and tries to concentrate at the task at hand.  
“Yes, yes, I can hear you,” an uneasy glance in Eliot's direction is all he can spare for now. Whatever’s happening, Margo is taking care of it. “Let's do this.”  
***  
He's nowhere. A great white void, unwelcoming, yet comforting in a sense of a clean slate. If he doesn't let the demons in, this could be a way to start over, rewrite his story. When there's no past and no future, the present is ever so changeable. Clay, morphed into new shapes at the slightest touch of his fingertips.  
“Eliot! Eliot, you son of a bitch, come back to me! God, I hope you're listening. Just get back here or I will go to the Underworld and drag your ass up myself!”  
Margo. Of course she would be here. Of course she would be fighting for his life with more vigor and determination than he ever had. All the drugs and booze in the world couldn't make him better, so why should anything change now? In the corner of his mind there's somebody else. Someone important, of sentimental value, perhaps, or maybe more. Hope.  
“Eliot, can you hear me?” That voice. So warm, so familiar. “Eliot, I'm not leaving you. I'm not going to just let you slip away. Not again.”  
Oh, well, they're not offering him much of a choice. After all, he could never resist a nicely executed happy ending.  
“Now how could I refuse such tempting words?”  
A glimpse of Margo, smiling. Quentin, holding his hand. He wants to say something else, something with more meaning, but in a blink of an eye the whiteness swallows him whole.  
***  
_“Q, are you coming?”_  
_Alice looked at him expectantly, but the words were all caught up and tangled in his mouth. Torn between what could be and what will never be, he had to make a decision, and do it fast. His body acted on its own, irritated by the mind's hesitation, head shaking in denial._  
_In her eyes there was understanding and, oddly enough, relief. “Go. He needs you.” Alice smiled and squeezed the bottle in her hand with a curt nod of reassurance. “Someone else can be a hero, Q.”_  
Now, sitting by Eliot's bed, he knows there was only one right decision. Margo went out to get some air, leaving the two of them alone. In silence he counts the breaths, waiting patiently, searching for signs of awakening on Eliot's face.  
“I'm here now.” He says, leaning back in the chair, eyes fixed on the rising and falling of El's chest. “I'm here to stay.”


	2. The Most Fucked Up Reason To Live

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I highly recommend reading chapter one first. Also, if it's not too much to ask, I would really appreciate some comments. Thank you, guys.

It's hard to remain conscious, his grip on reality loosening further with every breath he takes. Bleeding out isn't much fun, apparently. Here's to new experiences. It would almost feel as if he was high or completely wasted, but the pain from an open wound in his stomach continues to prove otherwise. He doesn't know what happened to the monster, who occupied his body merely moments ago. Or maybe it was longer than that. It's hard to keep track of time, stuck in a loop of memories, full of barely contained regret.  
“Eliot, come on, stay with me!” He's doing his best under the circumstances, but so is she. Poor Bambi. He wants to say something witty, but coughs up blood instead. Uh-oh. “Eliot!”  
“How is he?” Another voice. Muffled, faded.  
“About as good as you'd expect. Hanging in there, for now.” Margo's intonation softens as his world begins to fall apart, attention scattering all over the place, forcing him to claw at the last shards of awareness. “Go and finish your quest, Coldwater, and I'll keep Eliot alive, as long as you promise to return in one piece. Not for me. For him.”  
So close. So far away. He can’t even say goodbye, already drifting away. On the edge of oblivion, before it all disappears, there are two words, imprinted in his mind. An oath. A reason. A light in the dark.  
“I promise.”  
***  
“Okay, guys, let's find this seam or whatever, throw the monster and his crazy sister in, and get out, okay?” Penny is as cheerful and optimistic as always, but this time his attitude is perfectly suitable for the occasion. “This place feels wrong. I don't like it. I don't like it all.”  
“Neither do I, but this is the only way to save the world.” Alice stops in front of a door with no outstanding features whatsoever, her hand reaching out for the knob, visibly reluctant.  
“So, what are we waiting for?” Penny scoffs and shakes his head in annoyance. “It's just a door!” He points out, frustrated by her indecisiveness.  
“Of course it's just a door! What did you expect, a bunch of glowing signs with arrows pointing in its direction?” She turns around one last time, almost expecting for some creatures to jump out of the shadows. “Okay, it's now or never. Are you ready, Quentin?”  
This place does feel wrong, but it's hard to explain how, exactly. It's still, yet moving, shifting and melting into itself when he's not looking. He could walk here for hours and weeks, without a goal or a purpose. This thought is followed by another, even more unsettling. He could die here.  
He could finally end this game, in which he pretends to be happy, and the rest of the world plays along, as if they can't actually see the truth.  
He could be free, at last. But he doesn't want to, does he?  
Does he, really?  
“Oh my God, why can't we just get it over with? Quentin?” He can see Penny's fingers in front of his face, he can hear the snapping sounds, but it's almost like he's tearing through a wall of black mud, and it only keeps on getting thicker. “Jesus, man, are you okay?”  
“Yes,” he mutters, “Yes, let's end this.” Louder now, more confident. Without any real one available, false confidence should do.  
“Together?”  
There's so much more to do. To experience. To enjoy. So many things that he hasn't done, hasn't said. So much life to be lived. Love, wasted. Love that is still alive on the other side of the mirror.  
Peace and quiet, enveloping him from all sides, suffocating.  
He doesn't want to die here. He's not going to.  
He made a promise.  
“Together.”  
***  
_His first thought was ‘Everything hurts and I wish I was dead.’_  
_His second thought was ‘I hope Q is okay.’_  
_His third and final thought was 'I hope Q is okay someplace far away from here because I probably look like crap, and I don't want him to see me like this.’_  
_Then he opened his eyes._  
The room is painted in different hues of black, bathed in twilight, except for a nightstand, a beacon of yellow in the dark. Quentin is cuddled up in a chair next to his bed, fast asleep. Margo is standing by the window, seemingly lost in thought.  
He exhales carefully, adjusting to the levels of pain, and even such an intangible sound immediately draws her attention.  
“Oh, thank God, Eliot!” She whispers, approaching his bed. “You scared the shit out of me!” Margo squeezes his hand, and despite trying her best to seem angry, the happiness lights up her eyes, and she smiles.  
“Have some mercy, woman, I almost died.” He laughs and immediately starts coughing, which causes a sharp jolt of pain in his abdomen. “Fuck, this hurts. Better than being dead, I suppose.”  
“Eliot?” Quentin is half-awake, rubbing his eyes and looking around like a confused puppy. His infatuation must be too obvious, because Margo stands up, clearing her throat, and walks to the door.  
“I'm gonna give you two a moment. Or an hour.” He can still catch a whiff of her perfume in the air, an invisible presence. He grasps onto it, afraid of what's going to happen next, now that they're alone. There's so much he wanted to say, but…  
“Eliot.” The way his name sounds when Quentin says it, there's something absolutely delightful about it. “I was so worried worried about you. We all were.” Surely, he didn’t need to drag the entire world into the picture, but this will have to do.  
“So worried that you fell asleep, hmm?”  
“I, uh- I didn't- It just happened, sort of.”  
“Did you save the day?” He smiles, studying the lines on Quentin's face. Every single feature, every little movement. It's been too long.  
“Ye- Yes, we did. Alice and I. And- And Penny. It's over.”  
“So the good guys won. How predictable.” He wants this conversation to last forever, to freeze it in time and savor it like a bottle of wine, to get drunk on this warmth that's spreading inside his chest.  
“You haven't changed a bit, Eliot.”  
“Oh, I'm full of surprises, Quentin. And so are you, isn't that right?”  
“I need to tell you something, Eliot. It's important that you listen and don't interrupt me.” Such a serious look. Should he be scared or excited? A drawn-out, heavy silence. Oh, is there some kind of an answer to be given?  
“I will be most attentive, Q. I swear.”  
“Okay. Okay. All my life I thought that I was searching for a way to die. When I found out about magic and that Fillory was real, I realized that maybe I was looking for a reason to live. And today- Today I know for sure that I've found it. I've found my reason to live.”  
“Do you mind me asking what it is? I know you didn't want me to interrupt, but this whole build-up is practically begging for a question, so-”  
“You.” How a tiny, microscopic, most mundane word can change not one, but two lives in an instant. “All this time I didn't care about saving the world, all of the worlds, I just wanted to save you. I was willing to do anything just to bring you back home.”  
“Well, this has to be the most fucked up reason to live, Q, but I- I would've done the same for you.”  
It seems as though they both ran out of words, simultaneously. Throughout his life, he's been taught to face rejection, denial, mockery, misunderstanding, even disgust, but love? Love, rare as it was, was ought to catch him off guard.  
“I'm sorry for being a coward, Q. I'm sorry for being scared, dreaded by the mere idea of having something real. Something genuine. I'm sorry for pushing you away, I should've- I should've-”  
“It's okay, Eliot.” He’s done such a good job at not being too sentimental, at keeping his emotions under control, but now, wrapped in Quentin's embrace, he just wants to be himself. To love and to be loved.  
_His fourth thought was ‘I’m so glad I didn't die. This is totally worth being stabbed in the gut. Best. Day. Ever.”_


	3. Love Wins

Hey.  
_Hey._  
It’s good to have you back.  
_Good to be back. I’ve heard you almost died, is that true?_  
Margo.  
_She’s my best friend, Q. What did you expect? By the way, I hoped to see you a bit sooner._  
I’m sorry. There were some things that I needed to figure out.  
_Did you?_  
What?  
_Did you figure them out, those things?_  
Mostly, yes. Made some discoveries along the way.  
_Maybe it’s for the best that you weren’t here when I woke up. I looked like shit._  
Oh, I sincerely doubt that.  
_Well, I’m allowed to be a little self-deprecating. Being possessed by an ancient creature, whose favourite leisurely activity is murder, does that to people._  
I see that your sense of humour is intact.  
_Oh, yes. It’s easy to go mad in there, you know, stuck in your own head, helpless, in a loop of memories, some more pleasant than the other. Gives you a certain perspective, makes you realize what’s truly important._  
I’m sorry, Eliot. At first we thought that you were dead, erased by the Monster. He told me so. I didn’t know what to believe.  
_To be fair, I don’t know what I would’ve done in the same situation, Q. You never gave up. You fought to bring me back. A part of me thinks that, maybe- Maybe I wouldn’t be as strong. As determined as you were._  
Hey, it’s over now. It’s okay. We’ve made it through, alive. Both of us.  
_I cannot imagine a world without you, Q. I don’t want to. There’s something important I need to tell you, something I’ve come to understand._  
Yes, I need to tell you something, too.  
_Do you want to-_  
You should probably- Oh, alright. Do you want me to-  
_No, I’ll- I’ll go first._  
Okay.  
_This is harder than I thought it would be. Haven’t been this tongue-tied in a really long time. Could you get me some water? ___  
Are you stalling?  
_What? No! Why? Okay, fine, you got me. I’m scared. Actually, I’m mortified. There’s a million ways of how this could go epically wrong, and I can’t afford to lose you again, Q._  
You won’t.  
_Promise?_  
Promise.  
_I’ve- I’ve spent most of my life being afraid. Afraid of how people see me, what they think of me. I’ve built myself, slowly and carefully, and surrounded my heart with walls. Letting someone in would’ve given them an opportunity to hurt me, and I didn’t want to be hurt. There’s a very special kind of safety in playing pretend. But then- Then I met you. This kid, who was even more terrified than me. You made me want to open up, despite the odds. You made me feel something real. Something invaluable. And I fucked it up._  
Eliot, that’s not-  
_No, no, please. Please. Let me finish. I pushed you away when you were honest and vulnerable, and there are no excuses for that. I rejected you, and have been filled with regret since that very moment. Turning you down is the biggest mistake of my life, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry because- I’m sorry because you make me better. You make me whole, and I love you, Q. I love you._  
Uh- I-  
_You don’t have to say anything, Quentin, really, it’s not that big of a-_  
I love you, too.  
_-deal. Sorry, what did you just say? I blacked out for a second there._  
I love you, Eliot. That’s why I didn’t come to see you right away. When we escaped the Mirror Dimension, when I risked my life for the world and almost died- It was time to reconsider some of the decisions that I’ve made. Alice and I had a conversation. She was as reasonable as ever. Understanding. More understanding than I deserve, but anyway- I think, deep down, we both knew this thing between us, it wasn’t working out.  
_Oh, Quentin…_  
No, it’s for the best. It felt right. Just like this feels right. Being with you. We can give it a try, can’t we? See what happens?  
_Yes. Yes, I would really like that._  
Me too.  
_Could we, maybe, start with a kiss? ‘Cause it’s been a minute, and I’m really, really-_  
Oh, shut up.  
_Pretty sure that’s my line- Oh- Now this is interesting. Already taking charge?_  
Guess you’ll have to find out.  
_Now that you've given me something to look forward to... I can’t wait._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed reading this fic as much as i enjoyed writing it! thank you, guys! <3


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